Damn it! Had barely finished my last post when I read this post from Sans Serif.
“The Statesman” republished an op-ed from “The Independent,” Britain – “Why should I respect these oppressive religions?”. Some Muslims in Calcutta went berserk like they did in the case of Taslima Nasreen. A case was filed against editor – Ravindra Kumar, and the publisher – Anand Sinha, and they were arrested and lated released on bail. Read more about it here and here.
I never heard about it before; I don’t think the Times of India even mentioned the story. They wrote pages when their Ahmedabad editor was charged with sedition for writing about the city police commissioner. And the Indian media is absolutely silent with even The Hindu issuing a terse two paragraph announcement. But I don’t expect too much from them – its each man for himself, ideology be damned. Rats, all of them!
I am linking to this article again (I did it in my previous post, at the very end) because it is incredibly well written, and talks about the same thing that Kumar is being punished for – the criminalizing of opinion – “hate speech.”
If a State doesn’t allow you to hold an opinion without throwing you in jail, the laws of the State deserves no respect. Compliance maybe – you comply with a thief who points a gun at you – but no respect. And that is my position on the Indian ‘Justice’ System.
